Simplified Chinese is used in mainland PRC & Singapore & Traditional Chinese is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong & overseas Chinese communities. With Hong Kong's return to PRC in 1997 & with the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, Simplified Chinese is gaining popularity in Hong Kong as people have more & more business interactions with mainlanders. Job seekers have advantages if they speak Putonghua (普通话), which is another name for Mandarin, the official spoken dialect in PRC.
Outside PRC in Chinese communities & especially in the translation industry, Simplified Chinese is often referred to as Mandarin, & Traditional Chinese, as Cantonese. Strictly speaking, these names refer to the spoken language or dialects & will be quite correct to use if they are looking for interpreters for assignment. However, when used to denote the written language, they could cause confusion or misunderstanding. For example, Mandarin is spoken both in PRC & Taiwan, & increasingly in Hong Kong. A lot of people in the US Chinese community also speak Mandarin. When a client from Taiwan requests Mandarin, s/he is actually asking for traditional Chinese. Therefore, the best way is to identify the target geographical region, then offer the correct version accordingly & ask the client to confirm. This way, they will never end up with a wrong version.
How are words exchanged between English & Chinese?
In modern times Chinese has, especially in technical area, imported words from a lot of other languages of the world, most notably English. Borrowed words are admitted into Chinese in three main ways: translation, transliteration, & in a few cases, a mixture of both.
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